This is the 500th post on Disaffected Musings. When I tweet the link to today’s post along with the hashtags it will be my 1,500th tweet or re-tweet. This is the 553rd day this blog has existed.
I have learned that oddball post titles do not generate blog views. I have learned that when famous friends tweet links to the blog, the number of views/visitors increases dramatically. (Hey, Bill…anytime you want to tweet the main link to the blog or a link to a specific post I’m OK with that…hint, hint.)
Here are the five most-viewed posts so far this year, not counting the main page, of course:
The “End” Of Packard; More From The AACA Museum
Throwback Thursday [1/31/2019]
Sunday Studebaker from June of last year remains the post with the most views on Disaffected Musings. As I keep writing, blogging is cheaper than therapy and almost as effective. Although the average number of views per day for 2019 is about twice that of 2018, it is not an apples-to-apples comparison as I have also written before. Even with the millions of active blogs that exist I still remain convinced that this blog should have many more views/visitors than it does. All I can do is to keep writing and to hope I find that audience, I guess.
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From fastlanecars.com a picture of a 2003 Dodge Viper. As far as I can surmise this was the first US car to be offered with an engine that was officially rated at 500 HP or more. (Because this is the 500th post, get it?)
It is an open secret that the L88 engine option installed on 216 Corvettes from 1967-69 produced well in excess of 500 HP, probably between 530 and 560. However, it was officially rated at 430 HP to keep the insurance companies from going apoplectic AND to keep too many people from actually ordering it. The L88 cars were also only offered without radios and heaters. The famous “elephant,” the 426 cubic-inch Dodge Hemi, was underrated by the company and might also have been a 500+ HP engine in actuality.
Back to the Viper…as was always the case the 2003 model was powered by a large V-10 engine; in 2003 the displacement was 505 cubic inches/8.3 liters. In addition to the 500 HP rating the engine was rated at 525 LB-FT of torque.
Viper devotees are proud that the car didn’t offer ABS or traction control for a long time and that it was never offered with an automatic transmission. The facts are, though, that only about 32,000 were made in total and the car is no longer in production. How many Corvettes have been made? (The answer is about 1.7 million.) The devotees can say the Viper was never meant to be a “mass-production” car, but the automobile business is a business, after all, especially at the level of the Big Three US automakers. Yes, different strokes for different folks, I guess.
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#2003DodgeViper
#L88Corvettes
#somanycarsjustonelife
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